Establishment of the ‘Bureau of Music’ and ‘Women’s Music Pavilion’
Records of governmental officials in charge of music and dance (gakkan) can be found from the 7th century in Japan.
Japan’s first large-scale promulgation of administrative law was made with the Taihō-ryō of 701, when the official body for the performance and transmission of music and dance was established under the name Utamai-no-tsukasa, or Gagaku-ryō (‘Bureau of Music’). The history of Japanese gagaku begins with the name of this institution, and the music and dance it was put in charge of. The institution itself was one of the largest established at the time, with several hundred singers, dancers, and musicians.
Another body, the Naikyōbō (‘Women’s Music Pavilion’) was formed for the administration of music and dance performed by women (jogaku). Also, since the activities of the Music Bureau began to emphasize imported rather than indigenous music, the Ōutadokoro (‘Folk Music Office’) was formed for the transmission of Japan’s indigenous song and dance forms in the early Heian period (9th century).
From the mid-10th century, the center of gagaku transmission shifted to the Gakudokoro (or Gakusho, ‘Court Music Office’) established at the court and major shrines and temples.
Transmission by missions to the Tang court
Unified under the Sui dynasty (581–619), China became Asia’s clearly most powerful and culturally advanced nation under the succeeding Tang dynasty (618–907). The music and dance that became Japan’s tōgaku (‘Tang music’) was transported to Japan within the large-scale introduction of Chinese political and social institutions, religion, and culture by the Japanese ‘Missions to the Tang’ (Kentōshi). These missions, dispatched repeatedly over a period of more than two hundred years, had a transformative effect on Japanese culture. One notable figure is Kibi no Makibi (695?–775), who traveled to Tang twice, once as a student and once as Vice-Ambassador. Although shipwrecked on his way back to Japan, he managed to bring a number of items of musical significance, including the systematic record of Tang music theory known as Yueshu yaolu (Jp. Gakusho yōroku).
It appears that many different types of music and dance were transmitted from Tang China, since Nara-period (8th-century) sources record terms that might be translated as ‘old music of Tang,’ ‘music for Tang acrobatic entertainments,’ ‘middle music of Tang,’ ‘Tang women’s music’ and the like. As they were passed down within Japan’s music institutions, they gradually came to be known under the rubric tōgaku (‘Tang music’).
Consecration of the Great Buddha of the Nara temple Tōdai-ji.
The great variety of music and dance transmitted from the Korean peninsula and the Chinese mainland became established in Japan during the Nara period (8th century), performed both at the court and Buddhist temples along with indigenous song and dance genres.
Even by the middle of the 8th century, much of the imported music was performed just as it was when it arrived. Buddhist ceremonies, too, were celebrated with fervor, and it was the consecration for the Great Buddha of the Nara temple Tōdai-ji where religion and music came together in the most spectacular of all Buddhist ceremonies.
The ceremony to consecrate, or ‘open the eyes,’ of the newly-made image of the Great Buddha Rushana (Skt. Vairocana) was held on the 9th day of the 4th month of Tenpyō Shōhō 4, or 752. It is said that more than ten thousand people participated in the event. Records indicate that a pageant of music, dance and song from Japan, as well as from various parts of Asia, was celebrated in the large open-air enclosure in front of the main sanctuary.
After the central religious section of ‘eye-opening’ ceremony was completed, there was a procession by musicians of the genre toragaku, about which we still know so little. This was followed by a series of songs and dances of indigenous origin, the first by women and the two following by men, perhaps from warrior clans. Next followed a series of performing arts from the Asian mainland: a stamping dance with a celebratory Chinese text; an acrobatic performance; a dance of Chinese origin; an acrobatic Chinese dance; three dances of the rin’yūgaku (‘Music of Champa’) repertoire, namely Bosatsu, Bairo, and Batō; a Korean dance; a ‘middle’ Tang dance; a women’s Tang dance; three Korean dances; and Korean women’s music.
